Just Be

It’s not easy to be something other than what we are. It’s made even more difficult when what we are keeps changing, as does the expectations from The World Around Us.

Of course, knowing what we are and knowing what The World expects of us makes all this being much easier, but can you count the number of times in your life that you’ve known that to happen? Probably, and with one hand’s worth of fingers even.

Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we’re constantly measured against expectations from The World, and many times those judgements, those measurements, are unknown to us. Even if we’re ever informed of them, it’s usually well after the fact when we find out how we measured up. Too often, this leads us to move around through our own lives constantly trying to preempt bad judgements, poor performance, negative thoughts and feelings towards us.

If you were to look at it, you might find that notion preposterous. You’re moving through YOUR OWN LIFE, trying to avoid the negativity found in less-than-favourable judgements made by OTHERS?!

Doesn’t some part of your brain, an instinctual and possibly primal part, rear up and say, quite loudly, “Well fuck them, it’s MY life and I’M the one leading it! Who are THEY to judge ME on something they know next-to-nothing about?!”

I hope it does. I hope some little part of your brain just tingled and said, “Yeah, he’s right. I HAVE felt that way.” Maybe you’ve never said it out loud. Maybe you’ve never said it in the confines of your own psyche.

Maybe you should.

***

It’s not easy, but nothing worth it ever is.

But look around at others, then look at yourself. You live in there, they don’t. Many are unhappy about how they’re living, though they may not know it, and many may feel like they’re in circumstances that are out of their control and that they would change things if only they could.

At the end of the day, all you’ve really got is you. And you can change that part. You know how too. You know enough about yourself to start asking questions. You probably even know how to go about getting answers. After that, change starts to happen, as long as you want it to. It usually seems to come along best when you do a little every day. Then it happens the way lasting change does: Gradually, then all of a sudden.

***

I saw a grown man dressed like a fairy today. He was wearing a tutu and wings and carrying a wand. He was singing and flitting about, trying his heart out to be the best fairy around. And he was.

Before that, I was flitting about myself. Leaping sprightly across cracks in the sidewalk and trying my heart out to fly as lightly as possibly, just like the fairies do across the tops of flowers.

Does it matter that the man-turned-fairy I saw was on a children’s TV show? Does it matter that I was only following along behind my 6-year old on our morning walk to school?

I suppose it does, to The World Around Me, but it shouldn’t. And to me, it doesn’t.

***

You don’t have to flit fairy-like to be you. You live in there, and that’s good enough. YOU’RE good enough. Because nobody else is you, and if they tried their hand at being you, they’d suck at it. Because you’re it, the only You around, and you rock at it.

Most of the time, usually. You probably know when you’re rocking at it, and you probably know when you aren’t. And I’m willing to bet that when you’re rocking at being you, everything is just that much better.